On Doing Better

 

 

“For everything in this journey of life we are on, there is a right wing and a left wing: for the wing of love there is anger; for the wing of destiny there is fear; for the wing of pain there is healing; for the wing of hurt there is forgiveness; for the wing of pride there is humility; for the wing of giving there is taking; for the wing of tears there is joy; for the wing of rejection there is acceptance; for the wing of judgment there is grace; for the wing of honor there is shame; for the wing of letting go there is the wing of keeping. We can only fly with two wings and two wings can only stay in the air if there is a balance. Two beautiful wings is perfection. There is a generation of people who idealize perfection as the existence of only one of these wings every time. But I see that a bird with one wing is imperfect. An angel with one wing is imperfect. A butterfly with one wing is dead. So this generation of people strive to always cut off the other wing in the hopes of embodying their ideal of perfection, and in doing so, have created a crippled race.” ― C. JoyBell C.

 It is never supposed to be Perfection that we seek.  That is impossible and it all depends on who is defining Perfection.  It is steady progress towards being better than you were a few moments ago, an hour ago, a day ago, a month ago, a year ago, a decade ago.  And who defines “better”, anyways?  I have many flaws that I am aware of.  I become aware of my flaws when I make an error in judgment or decision or action that I feel does not fit what I was hoping to do, to be.  When I make a personal mistake, I need to give myself some grace, some compassion, and try to make amends to myself.  I try to do better.  Intention is the trying to do better.

An intention is being conscious of some change in self that we want to progress towards.  Perfection is definitely not one of those things.

Intention, itself, is the beginning of change.  Right now, for this day, I am going to…I INTEND to… make today as good a day as yesterday was.  I was free.  I did not rush.  I did not fuss over being criticized.  I did not criticize myself.  I let happen what happen and there was spontaneous delight in just having time with a girlfriend and doing non-usual things that either of us usually do.  It was peaceful and the camaraderie was awesome and set my soul at rest.  Today, I will do as little as needs be done and work to finish the last of 50/50 faces from the same print.  Art is my space, for sure.

I INTEND to start with the full moon and do some blogging about the moon phases and how the moon phases affect us.  I INTEND to do some intention-setting ideas an some art journaling around the theme and thoughts that come.  I INYEND to do some videoing of art techniques, perhaps to go along with the moon, the goddesses and the stones that all go with themes.  That is all I intend for the rest of the month.

Daily, I INTEND start my morning with quiet art time and finish the night with more art, to begin and end the day in what is a sacred way for me.  What needs to be done, other than this is all bonus for me.  I INTEND to keep my WANTS to a halt for the rest of this month so that I do not have any head-room for feeling needy. 

I am easing up and quieting my Evil Inner Witch/Critical Inner Voice/Ego.  I am close to exhaustion after this summer’s service and I need to be able to live purposely so am working on re-energizing myself and this is the best way I know how.   I guess it is a bit like being on auto-pilot with INTENTION being the foundation.

Do you need re-energizing?  Do you want the stimuli to be better at some things?  Then, let us do this together. 

©Carol Desjarlais 10.8.22